


Life is a Minestrone

by JoJo



Series: Magnificent Ohana [3]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Afghanistan, Alternate Universe - Military, Crossover, M/M, Married Life, New Years, SEAL Steve McGarrett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-08 12:24:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11081529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: Steve’s back on home soil after the mission and Danny, who’s still pretty mad he almost became a Navy SEAL widowagain, nevertheless figures he has to handle the transition with care.  Being Danny, he mostly has all the right moves.





	Life is a Minestrone

**Author's Note:**

> The H50/Mag7 crossover fusion thingy was established in [Across the Miles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9441200).
> 
> [The Singing Birds Come From Nowhere](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9605555) was the Mag7 follow-up, and this one's the H50 follow-up.
> 
> Hopefully characters from both canons will come together in future. Sounds like a plan, right?

Seven thirty, sunlight pooling under the blind, and Danny awoke to a number of states of being.

There was comfort, warmth, security.

Danny couldn’t believe how he’d managed to achieve such an outstanding triple combo, either right now in this moment or, frankly, in his life in general. He was lying on his side, slightly curled, in what he knew for a fact to be the best bed in the entire world, and there was a big hand resting warm, and ever so faintly possessive, just above his hinky knee.

Next to him, the owner of the hand – his husband of less than a year – was totally out of it. 

As for Danny being awake, the almost imperceptible twitching of fingers against his skin was probably the reason for that. Steve himself really was totally out of it, and thank God he was. It had been almost dawn before things had leveled out for him in the sleep department. Danny had been jerked awake around four a.m. by all his racketing about. He’d found him overheated, jet-lagged, and battling both his broken bone and a bunch of pesky emotions he just wasn’t equipped to deal with. The former, for McGarrett, were minor discomforts, but the latter were always going to reduce him to rubble.

Grumbling, Danny had tipped himself from the bed and gone to search out whatever pills the military doctor types had prescribed. Predictably these were stuffed at the bottom of the sand-filled, lumpy kit-bag still dumped by the front-door. He’d obliged Steve to take two pills on pain on having to go be restless and overheated in one of the spare bedrooms – alone.

It was an empty threat, and they both knew it. Not being as close as possible – whatever state Steve was in – was out of the question.

“Y’OK.” 

Steve had agreed the pretend terms, voice hoarse in the dark.

Chemical cosh on board, the results had been swift and absolute. Danny had puttered about for the ten minutes Steve took to be reduced to a boneless sprawl against three pillows, a fourth cushioning the shoulder brace. Then he’d scooted to the other, cooler side of the bed where he’d fallen back into his own blessed crash zone.

Evidently there’d been some mutual adjustment while they’d slept. 

Danny adjusted some more. The warm weight of the hand was not a substitute for being sealed so tight skin to skin they’d have to peel themselves apart like pieces of stubborn package tape, but, after the last six weeks, it really did feel like some kind of bliss.

He was not a Navy widow. _Not_. Or at least, not this time. The world had composed itself. 

The moment he’d heard Steve was back on Hawaiian soil Danny had called the team, and then both Rachel and Mary – Rachel to change plans with the kids, and Mary because she needed to know. Even though she had the whole McGarrett insanity thing going on in spades, and Danny bickered with her much the same he did with her brother, Mary had been a huge part of his support network, and really he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather be his sister-in-law. He’d caught her just before she went to drop Joanie at the childminder.

“I’ll get him to call you soon as he gets through the door,” he’d promised, but she’d told him no way.

_“Are you kidding me? Steve won’t even be making sense when he gets through the door. I know what my brother’s like when he’s been away remember. Let him get some rest first and then tell him to call me. And hey, Danny?”_

“Mary?”

_“Give him a big kiss from me, like a really huge one, OK? And then another big kiss from Joanie.”_

“I might be able to see my way clear to doing that,” Danny had said, but truthfully there hadn’t been much big, huge kissing at all. 

Steve had maintained he wasn’t made of china and that Danny should just go for it, but the invisible layers of stress and strangeness on both sides couldn’t be ignored. Not to mention the whole busted collar bone and laughably undersold “a little banged up down one side” state of affairs. Danny hadn’t seen the damage with his own eyes yet but jeez he’d seen how Steve was moving.

And talking of moving… bliss was bliss, but Danny badly needed to pee and if he was ever going to wake up properly he needed caffeine right after. 

Even so, shifting from under the warmth caused a pang of loss. 

As he slid away, Steve’s hand splayed for a lazy, searching second against the sheet. Then he carried right on being boneless as a jellyfish. By the time Danny came out of the bathroom, showered and with his hair dripping, the hand had moved again. It was resting high on Steve’s chest, fingers curled under. 

From possessive to protective, the body language was clear. 

Steve was always good to look at laid out in bed, but right now Danny didn’t want to dwell on the daylight detail of the thinned-out face, grazed raw down one side, the bruised knuckles, the too-heavy beard against the white pillows. 

Despite the almost accidental admission he’d been in the explosion on the Kabul airport road, Steve had gone into rapid ‘neither confirm nor deny’ mode on everything else last night. About whether he’d led the extraction team, about how it had been planned, how it had been executed, who else had been involved.

“So keep it to yourself, see if I care,” Danny had said, pretend-casual. 

He had every intention of finding out everything, of course, including names, but the basics were pretty clear. Whoever was involved had helped save one good guy – the one they’d heard about on the news on Christmas Day – and had doubtless neutralized a bunch of bad guys in a nasty, clinical manner along the way. Steve himself had seen one of his team blown up, and in the process nearly been killed too.

Just another day at the office.

Danny twiddled the wedding band on his finger, bad-tempered. Then he threw on some clothes, a little noisier than he needed to be, combed his hair into submission. Through the faintly temperamental opening and closing of drawers and closet, Steve remained unmoving, undisturbed, chest rising and falling, just the odd twitch of his thumb. 

“Would you please just shut up and be quiet,” Danny said to him finally as he slipped from the bedroom.

Downstairs he took several hits of the morning air, for calm. It was something he’d learned to do since moving to O’ahu, because however much you resisted (and he had, oh he had), the outside always seemed to be inside and vice versa. No point fighting it since it was inevitably going to be part of your day. Leaning against the kitchen sink he drank coffee, ate toast, answered excitable texts from Grace. Then he called Chin.

“We good?” he asked, unsettled by a thrum of guilt about not being at the Palace.

_“Yes and you’ll be the first to know when that changes. How’s Steve?”_

Chin sounded busy. 

“Alive, home, crashed. And listen, I’m going to stay around here for a while, keep an eye on him, OK?”

_“Wouldn’t expect anything less, brah.”_

“When he’s driving me batshit crazy in a few hours you may see me.”

_“Copy that.”_

Foregoing another cup of coffee, for now, Danny took up residence on the couch with his tablet and phone. There was work he could do here, calls he could make, and he couldn’t stand to be idle.

His mom, dad and sisters needed to know Steve was home safe for one thing. Max, Mindy Shaw and the lab guys would already be in the loop, but Kamekona and Nahele would need a call, too. Added to that Danny hadn’t touched base with the Governor for days and his work inbox would be groaning with casework-related messages. People asking things, people failing to answer things, and people generally yanking his chain.

It was hard to concentrate on any of it, because... hard.

But, on the upside, it was completely quiet through the house, like a library. The kind of quiet that soothed Danny so completely he had to take time to actually listen, to acknowledge his profound thankfulness. This was not empty, grieving quiet of the kind he’d dreaded. It was peaceful, healthy, alive quiet. 

Silence continued upstairs. The drugs were evidently good for a few more hours. It was at least that long before Danny heard any movement at all. Deciding not to go interfere or disturb re-entry in any way he carried on working, half an ear trained on the signs of life.

Feet eventually sounded against the floor above, moving slow. There was some raspy throat clearing. Then the shower began to run. For a long time the muffled shush of hot water could be heard, accompanied after a while by clunking sounds in the bathroom. There was more slow movement across the floor of the bedroom, the faint squeak of a closet door, and then, finally, careful steps on the open-tread stairs, before Steve rounded the corner and came down.

“Well, hey,” Danny said, looking up from the screen. He kept his tone nonchalant but his heart was thumping first-date hard against his ribcage. 

“Hey yourself.” 

Sheesh. About the best that could be said was that Steve had brighter eyes than last night, but sadly the Blackbeard whiskers were still disturbingly present. The random t-shirt and sweat-pants he was wearing suggested he felt like crap and wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon.

“No brace,” Danny said before he could stop himself. “Is that a good idea?”

Steve made a face as if he’d suddenly remembered that a) his husband was the Jersey mother hen to beat all other mother hens from anywhere and b) his shoulder hurt like a sonofabitch. “Ugh.” He looked vaguely up the stairs the way he’d come. And then, sluggish, swung his head back to Danny.

“Oookay.” Danny pursed his lips, not wanting to nag. “So tell me, how long do we got to have you walking round like a zombie?”

Steve tried a smile. It turned into a yawn, swallowing his reply.

“Uh-huh.” Danny shoved aside the tablet and stood. He stretched, then crossed the room into Steve’s space. “Hey, hello.” He slid a hand against a plane of muscular back, pulling Steve close as he could without jostling. Then he went for a kiss.

“Nngggh,” Steve said, falling into his arms as if his strings had been cut.

“Whoa, now there, that is... wow.” Danny pulled back, steadying him. “Appreciate the just-brushed tingle there, sweetness, but it’s not going to sit well with your first cup of coffee.”

“Shush.” Steve lurched forward again, kissed Danny deeper, but it was as if he didn’t quite know how to work his lips properly.

Such a soft, idiotic, toothepastey doofus.

Nevertheless, there was a hint of suppressed want beneath the minty burn and Danny kind of wished Steve would just crowd him on to the couch already, and then do very bad things to every last inch of him. Mostly, though, the movement of breathing under his hands and chest, the warmth of that familiar skin, was grounding enough to supersede everything else. It was ridiculously leveling. 

What should be. 

And hello, this kiss was clingy, mostly lips, the merest hint of French. When Danny pulled back again to catch his breath, Steve was blinking at him like a big cat on tranquilizers. Relaxed in a way he was rarely relaxed, all his guards down.

“This,” Danny said, steadying him again, and swishing a forefinger through the beard under his jaw. “You planning on keeping it?”

“It’s just.”

Just.

“A Navy thing?”

Steve shrugged, unwilling to enlarge, but Danny didn’t really need the explanation. It would be some team guy mark of respect for a lost colleague, about not trying to scrub everything away all at once. 

“I get it.” Danny swished at it again, frowning. “But the pirate goes when the zombie goes, OK?”

Which actually meant he thought Steve should offload sooner rather than later. 

Steve probably knew that, too. “Kay,” he said. His hooded gaze roved from Danny’s chin to his hair and back again, expression becoming almost disbelieving. “You,” he said, and Danny wasn’t sure he could stand the amount of relief and need and thanks in that one word. The amount of love.

“Yeah,” he said. “And right back in your ugly, beat-up face, GI Genius. You want coffee?”

“I’ll do it, ’m not helpless.”

“No but you’re a clumsy klutz when you’re tired.”

“So let me be a clumsy klutz. I just want to do stuff, be normal.”

Danny rubbed his back again, then poked him. “I’m not going to say one thing about you and normal not being allowed in the same sentence. Go, make your coffee. Chin and Kono are leaving us alone today but they want to come by tomorrow, OK?”

“They can come by anytime they like. Everybody can. And I really, really need to see the kids,” Steve said as he rambled towards the kitchen, slow and a little tentative.

“They’ll be here later,” Danny told him, going back to plop down on the couch. “Just for an hour or two, to say hi.”

“So I’ll cook,” Steve said over his shoulder.

“No, I’ll cook.”

The familiar push and pull.

“Huh, we could get takeout.”

“Maybe.” Danny reached for his laptop. 

“You can choose,” Steve said.

Danny snorted. “Of course I can.”

*

Steve sat next to him on the couch to drink his coffee. He said he was hungry but just couldn’t think of anything he wanted to eat, which Danny knew was yet another post-mission oddity. By the time Steve had gotten around to figuring out what his over-trained and over-denied stomach could handle he’d be consuming everybody’s weight in whatever it was. With any luck it would be good, fresh home cooking, but could equally turn out to be pizza. Or cake.

Danny continued to work through his emails, read a few reports, tablet balanced precariously on one leg. Steve’s thigh was sealed against his other one, that big hand back on his hinky knee. Although Danny made himself not keep looking at him, he suspected Steve was staring into space. Down on the shore the waves were sloshing like they always were, but Danny had almost learned to tune them out.

“Hear that?” he said.

“What?”

“The silence, Steven. The si-lence.”

“Yeah,” Steve said after a while. 

Danny did look at him then. “Make the most of it. For not only will you see them later but we have Grace and Charlie all next weekend, too – that’s two whole days, count ‘em. And it’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow. You’re going to need to put your party face on.”

“Did Charlie like the firetruck?” Steve asked, out of nowhere and oddly anxious. “He wasn’t disappointed?”

There’d been a big discussion back in early November about how much Charlie wanted a toy army tank that made realistic noises of destruction, how much Danny (and Rachel) didn’t want him to have one, and how much Steve was a big kid because he thought it was the best idea ever. The firetruck was the compromise.

Danny ran with it. “No. He loved the firetruck. You kidding? Just like Joanie loved the Sylvanian family mouse tea-party whatevers, and just like Grace loved the tech. Would you lose the frown lines already?”

“It’s great we have them on the weekend.”

“Really. Well, they will expect all the excitement. Not to mention Christmas levels of non-stop attention and jollification. From you.”

Steve beamed, and then put a wincing hand to the side of his face. Danny reckoned he was just starting to get true feeling back, in all kinds of ways. Including the banged up parts. 

“They are no respecters of weakness,” he reminded him darkly.

Steve shrugged that off. “I hated not being here for them. And I just wish I’d been here for Joanie, too. Man I miss that kid.”

“You should call your sister,” Danny said at once. “Who has all the photographic evidence of Star Wars Operation and what a buttload of Chin Ho Kelly’s Mai Tais look like the morning after.”

“Star Wars Operation,” Steve repeated, adorably clueless.

“Ask Max,” Danny said. “In both cases. Anyhow, Mary will be wanting to hear your voice.” He turned his wrist. “Like, right about now.”

“Yeah.” Steve made to stand up and then said, “Ow.”

Danny let the tablet slide off his lap. “You need to take something. I can tell you’re hurting.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Yeahbut nothing, seriously, what is wrong with you? I know you don’t like them, but we agreed on the zombie for at least today.”

Steve huffed out a discontented breath but Danny just tutted as he got up to find a phone.

“Once upon a time you would have just yelled I was an idiot and you were done,” Steve mused and he was kind of on point.

“Well I’m married to you now, so I try to keep the peace.” Danny came back in from the kitchen with Steve’s phone which he slung at him. “Besides, I’ve mellowed. You’ve mellowed me. Or worn me down. One or the other. The pills are upstairs, right?”

“I guess.”

“Well I’m hoping not to be running around after you all day,” Danny said, which was a complete lie, “but just this one time I’ll go fetch them. And the brace. We need you healing sooner rather than later.”

“I should do laundry,” Steve said in the intervening time between sliding painfully back into the brace, popping the pills, and then waiting for them to take effect. “Do we need a grocery run?”

Danny got it, he did. Steve wanted normal, as quickly as possible. He wanted humdrum and regular and domestic. Or at least, their version of that. To deal with things by making out that nothing in particular had happened recently. Danny felt the same way himself, could understand the temptation to reach for it. But Steve had been away, separate, cut off, doing unspeakable things. Danny had been left, holding it together, sleepless and stressed. The reality of all of that had to be given space or else life could get complicated.

And in the meantime while not finally going into meltdown himself, Danny had to dissuade Steve from tearing around the neighborhood, power swimming, unnecessary spring cleaning, or anything else involving more physical exertion than eating.

“We’re stocked up,” he said. “We have ginger, we have sweet potato, we have limes. All the things you might need for one of your brews.”

“My brews?” 

“Well all right. Stews. Mushes. Whatever you prefer.”

“Soup, Danny, I prefer soup.”

Danny knew it. He waved a magnanimous hand. Then he watched Steve frowning at his phone as if he was trying to remember how it worked in this environment.

The Zombie? So not fun to live with.

Plucking the handset from his grasp, Danny hit ‘Contacts’, scrolled rapidly, then hit dial. Steve was still catching up on having lost control of the phone, had barely managed to raise a protesting finger when Danny made the connection.

“Hey,” he said into the phone, raising his brows at Steve in warning. “It’s me. I got someone here you might want to talk to.”

And he handed the phone back with a mouthed ‘you’re welcome.’ 

Then he went out on the lanai to make some calls of his own. Chin first. Because there was stuff going on, he knew it. Because the Wai’anae murders were on his mind. Because, since the shadowiest of the shadowy Navy people had decided to re-activate his semi-retired husband, 5-0 was Danny’s team. Until such time as it wasn’t.

Chin bounced him on to Kono because he was halfway to a new crime scene, and Danny’s cop antennae went on to high alert in an instant. He reined himself in before Kono did.

_“We got it, boss, OK? We got it. Just for today. Like Chin said, anything changes...”_

“OK, OK,” Danny said, palming the hair above his right temple. “I hear you.”

So much crazy, an elite married to an elite. So much compromise. He vaguely heard Steve’s low laugh through the terrace doors, and that settled him, just enough.

When he went back inside, Steve was saying, “Well tell her Uncle Steve can’t wait to see her, OK? Yeah, I will, promise. Promise, OK?” He looked up at Danny and rolled his eyes, although he had a smile playing around his lips. “Yeah, you too, Mare. Bye.”

Seamless, Danny reached to snag the phone from him.

“We all good?”

“We’re a little teary,” Steve said. “And we’re a little mad and kind of a whole lot I should kick your ass halfway round the island. But, you know, all in all we’re good.”

That sounded like Mary. “Well I owe her,” Danny told him. “Where’d she learn all those holding-the-fort skills? That you?”

“I’m guessing that would’ve been Aunt Deb. Or maybe it was mom.”

“Huh,” Danny said, fighting to keep the skepticism out of his voice and mostly failing. “OK. And she’s sending you the pictures?”

“Pictures, movies, holiday playlists.” Steve frowned to himself as if on a mental fast-forward. “Did Nahele make it to lunch? He all right?”

“He did and he is.” Danny chose not to tell Steve that the kid had spent most of Christmas Day afternoon staring at the news channels scared out of his wits. 

“Soup,” Steve said, on a counter-intuitive and not untypical fight-the-drugs impulse. 

“Knock yourself out,” Danny replied, once again tamping down what might have been his normal response. He contented himself with a squinty-eyed look of disapproval at McGarrett’s back after he’d floundered a little getting up off the couch one-armed and was heading towards the kitchen.

The sounds of Steve in the kitchen were golden, however. Slower than usual, but the same super-efficient gathering of ingredients and utensils as ever, perhaps accompanied now by the odd clumsy clonking sound. 

“When I said knock yourself out, you know I didn’t mean it, right?” 

“Did that utility bill ever come in?” was the response but Danny didn’t miss a beat. Steve on strong painkillers was generally either way behind the curve or on another curve altogether. Sometimes both at the same time.

“Electric? Yes.”

A pause for thought. Some chopping sounds. “And the upstairs window locks?”

Danny had a brief flashback of the argument they’d had – the one they always had – when it came to hiring contractors. For all Steve’s insistence on comparing every single local business down to the last cent, it was almost always Danny’s choice in the end.

“They came, they saw, they did the work.”

“I kept wondering.”

“Seriously?” Danny did shake his head over that – the weird idea that twelve thousand miles from O’ahu, and deep into a life or death mission, Steve had been fretting over bills and domestic security maintenance. He was somehow both disturbed and comforted by the thought.

“Tell me about what you’re working on, what you’ve been doing with yourself, D. What the kids have been up to. You think I don’t care about that stuff?”

“I know you do, Steven. Probably too much.”

“Well I don’t know what that means, but whatever. Did the Carson case come to court in the end? Did Gracie ever finish that art project for school? What are the plans for New Year’s? I want to know, Danny. All of it.”

The house began to smell of lemongrass and garlic. 

Steve pottered from one end of the kitchen to the other, ungainly and busy. Leaning on the door jamb watching the familiar stubbornness on display in all its questionable glory, Danny filled him in on the last six weeks at Five-O. On how his colorful running battle with the governor over resources was going, on the book he’d been reading that had made him want to chew his own arm off, on the details of Charlie’s several grouchy trips to the doctor with ear-ache, and on the drama of Grace’s ever-changing friendship groups. 

It felt good, but Danny knew there were other things going on here. As much as Steve genuinely wanted to hear the news, it was no surprise he also didn’t want to be the center of attention anymore – which in Danny’s opinion was a classic displacement activity for not dealing. What’s more, he had a discontented feeling that once the painstakingly prepared recipe being assembled in front of him (which, so much ditto on the not dealing front) was ready to serve, the big putz wouldn’t actually eat any of it. 

And he was right. 

Steve finally finished making his one-handed soup (an operation Danny sincerely hoped he’d never have to witness again), and even tried clearing up, although that was abandoned after a while because the floor was being trashed and Danny wouldn’t let him get the brace wet. Or take it off. 

Then he merely observed, heavy-eyed, as Danny ate amongst the to-be-stored piles of kids’ stuff and general house contents heaped on the dining table. 

“It’s its usual Hawaiian taste-sensation,” Danny assured him. “Although a can of minestrone would have been fine, too, you do know that, right?”

In some ways, of course, a can of minestrone would actually have been better. More practical, for sure. And much less symbolic of the maelstrom inside Steve's head.

Steve didn't answer the question, though. He backed from the table instead, staggered towards the recliner and then folded into it, all of a sudden beyond response, beyond speech. Danny got up and toed the footstool towards him without comment, and within minutes Steve was gone. 

Crashed. 

'Sparko', as Rachel’s father might say.

Danny’s phone buzzed.

 _“We caught a case,”_ Kono’s voice told him as he swung back towards the terrace door. _“And in the course of our investigations...”_

“You need me?” He was hopeful.

_“Suspect we’re holding downstairs may know something about Wai’anae, boss, but we can’t keep him for much longer. If you want a shot...”_

Danny wavered in the doorway between the dining area and the terrace. His cop spidey senses were tingling. Steve was in that weird crash-state, worn out by normal for the moment, and he probably wouldn’t wake for a couple of hours at least. Chances were he wouldn’t even know if Danny drove downtown and back. He was collapsed into the recliner, long lashes downswept, slightly hunkered towards his good shoulder. Danny would think he looked picturesque except he didn’t. He looked rough. The marks of violence were ugly and made Danny mad all over again. 

Jamming the phone under one ear, he snagged a blanket, folded in a neat rectangle by the cleaners.

“No,” he said, trying to resist the mad. “You go for it. I kind of have my hands full here.”

 _“OK, boss.”_ He could hear the smile so guessed he’d been successful. _“Understood. We’ll keep you updated.”_

Danny ended the call, grateful Kono had called and not her cousin. Chin, who’d been the unfair target of his rantings more than once over the last six weeks, would have heard the mad and then called him on it. He launched the phone on to the couch next to his abandoned tablet. Then he shook out the blanket, threw it over Steve with a pointed huff. He’d let him do his thing with the soup, and now Popeye the Sailorman needed to rest up before the kids arrived. Danny doubted any of them would get out of that without being emotionally drained.

“You. You need to eat something,” he said, jabbing a finger in Steve’s general direction. “Swear to God you’ve no more sense than a fence post.”

Then he dropped a kiss on top of his head. 

No regrets but sheesh, the reality of this second round of married life seemed to be a combination of fury, abject devotion, and unsatisying one-sided conversations with an unconscious husband.

Unfortunately, unconsciousness was still a major feature a couple of hours later when Rachel dropped Grace and Charlie. Danny heard them coming up towards the front door, heard the excitement. Braced himself.

“Oh God, Danny,” Rachel said, as all three of them stepped inside. She’d stopped still and was staring at Steve across the room. “Are you sure about this?”

With impressive reactions she’d grabbed Charlie by the hand as the door opened, to stop him turning into a projectile headed straight for the recliner. Grace, having come bouncing in behind them, was now frozen, wide-eyed and freaked.

“He’s fine,” Danny said, hands raised in pacification, or to keep them quiet, or who the hell knew what. He forgot sometimes that he was just too used to all this. “Hey, come on. He’s fine. Just bushed – it’s what we expect, right? The beard’s just a little leftover and it’ll be gone in a day or two. And he’s taking some pills for his arm which make him want to sleep.”

“His poor face.” Grace sounded younger than she was.

Danny took a breath. “Rach,” he said, “Some help here?”

“Daddy’s right.” Rachel’s bright smile was one Danny could see right through. “Uncle Steve is fine. Just a little the worse for wear at the moment. Let him wake up in his own time and I know he’s just going to feel so much better for seeing you. I tell you what, though, you could go and make him a cup of tea. Uncle Steve loves a cup of tea when he wakes from a nap, remember?”

Grace brightened a little.

“Wake him!” Charlie said, yanking hard enough to break free of his mother’s hand. “Wake him, wake him!”

“Well sure.” Danny dropped to his haunches, hooked Charlie round the waist as he shot past, and reeled him in. “But we don’t wake people by jumping on them, especially when they're Uncle Steve, right, buddy?”

“We could come back?” Rachel offered.

Danny half wanted to laugh. Steve hadn’t stirred, even through the kerfuffle. 

“No way,” he said. “Just maybe... we might have to cut short the visit for today? He’ll be fine by the weekend. Well, OK, he won’t be fine. But he’ll be awake. Maybe.”

Grace tip-toed up to the recliner. “Hey, Uncle Steve, I’m going to make you some tea, OK?” and she stroked his head on the side he wasn’t banged up, which got Danny right in the chest.

He held fast to Charlie for a few more minutes, while he and Rachel had some back and forth and Grace said ‘oops!’ in the kitchen and dropped what sounded like a teaspoon.

Rachel eventually put a finger to her lips as she looked at Charlie, still champing at the bit. “All right, why don’t you go over and say hello really quietly? Do you think you can do that?”

Danny cautiously released his hold.

Charlie, face comically serious, took long, slow strides towards the recliner, and tugged at the knee of Steve’s sweatpants. “Hey, Uncle Steve, hey,” he said in a stage whisper. “You can wake up now.”

Coming up behind, Danny swept him up so he was suspended upside down above the recliner.

“A kiss’ll do, Mr. Magoo,” he said and held tight as Charlie planted a smacker on the side of one whiskery cheek.

Steve twitched. Then his head rolled slowly towards the warmth, eyes cracking. 

Danny knew, he just knew, that it was taking an enormous effort of will to speak at all when Steve murmured, “Hey, buddy, good to see you,” as he opened wide his good arm.

“Careful,” Danny said, and let Charlie slide down into Steve’s side for a cuddle. He didn’t miss the wince but figured all the stupid training had to be good for something.

“Hi Rachel,” Steve slurred at her, the little boy tucked into his side.

She smiled, close to fond. “Glad you’re home, Steven. We all missed you. Danny especially.”

“Danno’s soooo grumpy when you’re gone,” Charlie expanded. He traced the edge of tattoo on Steve’s bicep. “Can you come play on the beach? Right now?”

Steve, becoming more alert, ruffled his hair. “Absolutely,” he croaked. “Although maybe not right, right now.” He sent a look Danny’s way. “Grumpy, huh?”

Danny didn’t answer, just crossed his arms, nodded towards the kitchen door. Grace was advancing slowly into the room holding a bone china teacup and saucer like a young lady at finishing school. She was not, he thought with some pride, half English for no reason.

“You know I think Uncle Steve’s going to need his arm back,” Rachel said to Charlie. “Can you hop down for a little?”

“I can hop!” Charlie agreed and threw himself with energy out of the recliner, whacking Steve a generous crack on the chin with a flying elbow.

“Really? Are you sure?” Rachel said again.

“Welcome home, Uncle Steve,” Grace said, all shy and overcome.

The teacup rattled in the saucer as Steve, uncoordinated and off-kilter, took it off her. Then she sat on the arm of the recliner and his arm slid round her waist and she buried her face in his neck. The teacup continued to rattle but somehow held firm.

“I’ll be back in an hour or two,” Rachel said. “After some errands. They can snack, I’ll feed them later.”

“We can cope with food,” Danny told her.

“If you say so.” And then she gave Danny a swift peck on the cheek and was gone.

Charlie began to hop towards the kitchen, looking for snacks.

Steve’s eyes, suspiciously brilliant, met Danny’s over the top of Grace’s head. 

Good to know even battle-hardened Navy defences were vulnerable to stealth attacks by kids bearing tea and kisses. Now to get some actual sustenance inside the big chump, preferably something basic and bland. Danny gave his daughter an approving nod, followed his son into the kitchen.

And that was how they spent the visit in the end.

It was Mission Feed Uncle Steve. Making scrambled eggs, and making a hell of a mess.

Danny felt a weight starting to lift off him as he watched Steve manfully clear his plate, anxious to please the kids even if he didn’t actually want the eggs. Maybe they’d kick start his appetite.

“Will you be able to swim on the weekend?” Grace asked, hopeful.

“Sure,” Steve said.

“Absolutely he will not,” Danny disagreed, trenchant.

Charlie chortled.

They began to clear the kitchen between them after Rachel had come to collect the kids and the house was all quiet again, although Steve was bruisy-eyed by then, channeling the Zombie. And probably the demons as well.

“You want to go sit outside?” Danny suggested, figuring maybe the ocean was calling by now. 

Only, when he finished up with the dishes and went down the garden, Steve was standing in the half-dark right down on the shore. Not sitting. Not at ease.

He turned as Danny came up on him.

“Hey.”

Danny tucked a hand under Steve’s t-shirt. “Can I bust your chops, please?”

“Really, Danny. Really?”

“Yes, really. You need to get some proper sleep, rest that shoulder.”

Steve just touched his whole hand against it. “Yuh,” he agreed as if doubtful he was anywhere near ready to sleep.

Danny took a lungful of ocean air. He so much didn’t want the Zombie anymore, and he didn’t want Blackbeard either. He wanted Steve back, only Steve needed to be dug out of his trench first. 

“Listen,” he said. “I arranged for Grace and Charlie. I called your sister for you. I didn’t nag even though you’re an idiot. I bought mush ingredients. Ate your mush. Let you sleep. Let you pretend you knew what day of the week it was when you woke up. I had all the moves, Steven. Now, you need to spill.”

“Danny...” 

It was a distinct growl of irritation, of resistance. Danny was glad of it in spite of himself. Whatever he might say, he really didn’t like Pushover Steve. Pushover Steve was no fun and did not in any way float his boat. Nevertheless, Danny was not in the mood to butt heads either. Sometimes he was in that mood – really quite often, Steve would probably claim, and Danny had certainly done more than his fair share of yelling at the water while he’d been gone – but not now.

“So all right, not your whole guts,” he said. 

Steve had a stiff-necked stance anyway, as if he might be about to go full Naval Intelligence on him. Securing his own blast doors at the same time.

“Hey,” Danny said, a little sharper. “I’m no more in the business of putting people in harm’s way than you are, remember? I get, y’know, ‘classified’ and ‘national interest’, all that stuff. But I’m your husband, I gotta live with you, so I also need to know what’s in your head. That head which I do believe got itself mashed against the side of a truck after a big-ass suicide bomb? Yeah, that one. I need to know.”

Steve rubbed a hand over his face, slow.

“Really, Danny?” he said again. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

Steve was reluctant still, but, typically, once committed, all business. He gave Danny a last, rather hunted look, and then gestured with his good hand, out across the ocean, eyes fixed on the far distance. “So, lightning extraction. Can’t tell you exactly where or how. We’d been training for weeks, went in on two hours’ notice.”

“One team?” Danny stared out at the horizon, too. Such a long way from all that.

Steve had total focus now. “Mission cover was an army infantry troop, half a dozen top guys stationed in the region a long time, knew the enemy back to front.”

“Led by?”

“Captain of the troop was one hell of an impressive soldier. I’d work with him again.”

“OK,” Danny said, really not wanting to contemplate any repeat performances. “So the mission goes down. I don’t know anything about it, of course, but OK, you’re in, you’re out, you free the hostages. Although of course I don’t know anything about hostages. But wham bam the mission’s a success, packages are secure, and you leave the base again. The base I don’t know anything about. And then?”

“Ambush on the airport road.” Steve’s momentum began to slow again as if some weight was descending, and Danny glanced over at him. “We were in three vehicles and there was a motorcycle approaching, just after a secure checkpoint. Civilian, seemed to be having engine trouble so I called the halt. I called the halt, Danny.”

“Easy,” Danny said, knowing that look, knowing that voice. 

Steve swallowed, touched the injured shoulder again as if it was the repository of everything. “I left the lead vehicle, was walking towards the motorcycle. The guy was speaking English for fuck’s sake! And then. Then he detonated.” Another swallow. “Took out the middle truck. Thought he’d taken me, too.”

“Jeez,” Danny said. 

Steve worried the shoulder brace more forcefully, reminding himself. “I called the fucking halt. Should have seen it coming.”

“Steve,” Danny said, wondering if he should stop the hand before it did anymore damage. “You know the maniac would have detonated whether you called a halt or not, right? If you’d gone past without stopping he still would have blown himself up. It’s what he was there for. So this is not on you. Don’t do that.”

“Driver was Petty Officer Roberto Suarez.” Steve’s voice had grown gluey with drugs and grief. “Due to be married in a month’s time. I didn’t make the call but I need... I need to.”

“Speak to the family, yeah. When you actually can speak. He was a good guy, right?”

“Lot of good guys. The US hostage. The troop that laid our ground cover. The doctor on the base.”

“And the name of this impressive captain?”

“Larabee,” Steve said, probably figuring Danny would be able to find out for himself if he wasn’t told. “Still deployed, tour doesn’t end for a month or two. Word is he’s in a relationship with a journalist on the base – a news camera guy.” Steve took his hand away from the brace. “How about that?”

“Wait,” Danny said, glad Steve was giving him the excuse to haul them back from the brink. “You mean there are guys in the military who have actual relationships with guys?”

“I mean they’re sleeping together.”

“Wait,” Danny repeated. “You mean there are guys who actually sleep together?” 

“Yeah,” Steve said. “And they have sex and everything.”

“We should try it.”

“You’re a comedian, you know that?”

“Uh-huh and you’re an idiot and I love you.” He paused, let the word sink in. “OK, grilled you enough, tough guy. You need more pills and more sleep. I need... I don’t know what I need. Although wait, yes I do. But whatever. I can wait a little longer for the husbandly stuff.”

“Oh man, the husbandly stuff,” Steve said and pulled him in close with a shiver, half from the cool and fatigue, half from something else. 

Danny sighed against his mouth. He could go there, he really could. There was a vast well of missing, longing and downright rampant desire under the carapace of holding things together. Steve would go there, too, he was sure. But then again, Steve never did know what was good for him.

“Get in the house,” he said. “I’ll be up in a while, don’t forget the zombie pills.”

“A while?” Steve was suspicious.

“Yeah, I have some more work to do.”

Steve gave him a look then. Full of fondness and pride. “Busy boy.”

“Well if you will keep putting on the cape and abandoning your task force, that’s what you get. Go.”

Steve obeyed with the huff of a laugh, and once his figure had weaved a weary way out of sight, Danny plucked his phone from his pocket. He plumped down in one of the Adirondack chairs, called Chin.

 _“Hey."_ Chin sounded pleased to hear him.

“Hey, where are you?”

_“At the Palace.”_

“Well that’s not good.”

_“Long day, brah.”_

“And how’d it go? You get anything?”

 _“Tough nut,”_ Chin said, _“but he gave up a few names in the end.”_ A pause. _“I could go through it all, Danny, but we were talking, me and Kono.”_

“Talking.” Danny knew what Chin and Kono ‘talking’ could lead to. Second marriages for a start. “So is that talking talking or plotting talking?”

 _“OK, we were plotting talking.”_ Chin didn’t even bother to deny it. _“And we decided you really don’t need to come in tomorrow either. It’s New Year’s Eve, you have your boy home. We’re going to handle this last lead first thing, and if there’s nothing doing we’re going to put things on ice until after the holiday. That is, if you give us the go ahead.”_

“I’ll do you a deal. You send me everything you’ve got up to now, including from today, and I’ll give you the go ahead. Also, you and your cousin need to be here tomorrow evening whatever. There will be fireworks.”

Chin laughed. _“Try stopping us. Steve up to it?”_

“Up to a point, but y’know, I plan to have more of the pieces put back together by then, and he really needs to see you, even if he crashes before any of the fun really begins. And you really need to make sure everyone else gets over here too. Can I leave that with you?”

_“Party time at the McGarrett-Williams’ again, huh? I’m still recovering from Christmas.”_

“Well, you know, happy new year, happy homecomings. Keeping it low-key, but he could do with some facetime.” From the people that count, he could have added, although Chin knew it well enough.

_“Sounds good._

“Send the stuff.”

_”Yeah, yeah.”_

Chin clearly thought he was crazy wanting to read case material while at home. But of course he sent it straight away anyhow and Danny read every single file standing in the kitchen drinking tea flavored with mango, which was actually less terrible than it sounded. By the time he’d locked up and made it to the bedroom, Steve was asleep. Two pills were set on the nightstand next to a bottle of water which meant either he was showing foresight and preparing for a dose in the middle of the night... or he’d forgotten to take this one. Peeling off his t shirt, Danny gave him the benefit of the doubt. He’d go with foresight or forgetfulness. Even though he knew Steve could just as easily have had a stubborn moment and decided he’d not take them at all.

Danny disturbed in the night again, dragged from a deep sleep. 

He was dimly aware of the bathroom light, the bed dipping, a glug from a water bottle, then Steve lying down carefully next to him.

“’Kay?” he asked, too brain-fogged to lift his head.

“Fine,” came back the reply. There was a light, warm slide of hand down his shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”

*

When he woke up again it was daylight and he was alone.

The other side of the bed was empty, and the shoulder brace was lying abandoned on the pillow as if Steve had vanished into thin air and left it behind. Half a bottle of water and the two untouched pills were on the nightstand. 

Danny’s first thought, furious and panicked, was that Steve was in the water. 

But then, as his feet touched the floor, he realized he could hear him talking on the phone downstairs. He made it as far as the head of the stairs, on his way down, but something stopped him. It was the low, measured tenor of Steve’s voice that made him hesitate, although he couldn’t make out his words. 

Danny swiveled and went back to the bedroom. 

By the time he was showered and following the smell of freshly brewed coffee and the hum of the washing machine downstairs, the call was done. 

Steve was standing on the terrace with a mug. His phone was lying on the table.

Shit. Staring at the ocean when he was this far away from it was not good news. It might mean he was headed off the reservation.

Danny came up with a touch under one shoulder blade, was unsurprised to feel the tension under his hand. 

“Suarez family?” he questioned, no preamble.

“Roberto’s mother,” Steve said, very Commander, very in control. “She said thank you for the call.”

“Of course.”

“Of course.” Still very Commander. “And of course she didn’t really want to talk to the guy in charge when her son was slaughtered.”

“Hey.” Danny was sharp, knew he had to be. “Don’t you dare.”

Steve was even more tense then, as if he was about to shake Danny off.

So, sometimes you take it easy, sometimes you indulge, and then sometimes… sometimes you slap that shit down hard as you can as soon as it appears.

Danny pulled a fistful of t-shirt so hard Steve nearly dropped the mug.

“Don’t you dare take it all on,” Danny repeated. “Bereaved family – we know how that goes. We’ve fucking been there ourselves. You did what you needed to do. Do me a favor and just leave it there would you?”

Jolted by the uncompromising fierceness of Danny’s tone, Steve shivered. “’kay,” he said. And then, putting the mug down by the phone and turning into him, he wheedled, “Don’t growl at me, D.”

“Oh really.” Danny let himself be tugged forward by the front of his own t-shirt. Steve was still lop-sided from the shoulder injury but he was definitely steadier than yesterday. His long octopus tentacles draped over Danny’s back and then there was a hot mouth behind his ear, trailing down the side of his neck. Like a heat-seeking missile. 

Man, the husbandly stuff was becoming more and more of an imperative.

But then, in the grand tradition of the team messing with their heads, Grover called.

“Fuck you, Lou,” Danny said as disentangled himself from the tentacles to look at the ID on his phone. 

Steve sighed, let himself be gently pushed away.

Even as he was listening to Grover, Danny was feeling the whisker burn and making cut-throat gestures. The pirate was really no longer welcome here, whatever the symbolism.

It lasted until around about midday.

Steve emerged from upstairs still testing the feel of his newly exposed face. It was tender and smooth, smelled of something that reminded Danny of all the time he’d wasted yearning for something he didn’t think he’d ever have.

“Oh God,” he said, rubbing his face against the sensitized skin. It was so good to see the long, handsome line of Steve’s jaw. So good it went straight to his dick. “That’s it.”

They needed to get to the store, though. Before it closed for the holiday.

There was food preparation to do. Fairy lights to be hung. Fireworks to be purchased. And he remembered how good it was (when they weren’t disputing something) just bombing around the neighborhood doing chores together. Even more so because he got to drive.

“I could drive,” Steve said.

“You’re an idiot.”

Danny should have known, however well he seemed to be doing, that the evening was going to be exhausting for Steve. Hell, it was exhausting for him. He was a natural host, liked to cook, fix drinks, make sure everyone was having a good time, so the evening was no strain in that sense. But Danny knew the last six weeks were catching up with him like a train.

Everyone dropped by. Like, everyone, in that Hawaiian island way.

Rachel and Stan brought the kids for an hour, although she’d called dibs on the whole holiday as Danny had done Christmas. The Governor came for a drink. The Chief of Police, too, which, if Chin hadn’t been the man he was, would have ruined his evening. They didn’t stay long, but there they were. Then there were the HPD gang, Duke, Pua, half a dozen others. Not to eat, just to say hi to the Big Kahuna and drink a beer on the lanai. Eric and Charlie Fong came from the lab, Eric already three sheets to the wind. Max and Sabrina and Dr. Shaw from the M.E.’s office came together in a cab. Kamekona and Flippa, of course, with their families. Lou Grover’s clan. Adam and Kono. Jerry and his girlfriend. 

The house, as it had been so often since Danny had arrived on O’ahu, was full to bursting.

And everyone was cool. They were all so glad for Danny that this holiday wasn’t like the last one that for a while he didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“I know, brah,” Chin said, catching him in the kitchen. “It’s almost, I dunno, like they really care about you.”

Steve, predictably, began to conspicuously run out of gas around nine thirty. He’d drunk half a beer and eaten very little since what Danny considered a really great sandwich at lunch-time. 

Danny didn’t even need to flag it up. Gradually, one by one, the guests noticed and began to drift away, citing other parties, tiredness, whatever it was, and Danny couldn’t not be a little glad. If they hadn’t seen it for themselves he would have thrown them out anyhow. And he was relieved that Steve was listening to his body.

Besides, he was more or less running on empty himself.

“Listen,” Kono said, the last to leave along with her cousin. “Some of us will be at Kamekona’s for midnight, if you want to come. I mean,” tipping her chin to the ceiling, “if you’re okay leaving him.”

But Chin thought that was a stupid idea.

“Ignore her,” he said. “We don’t want to see you.”

“Nice.” Danny gave him a hug anyway.

He locked up, left everything as it was downstairs – glasses, plates, unfinished food, unopened bottles, unpulled party poppers. Up in the bathroom he dropped all his clothes in a heap.

Steve made a faint growly noise when he climbed into bed and pawed at him until he rolled in close. Danny decided he really liked they were both naked and it was only ten thirty. Grace and Charlie were still up, probably even downtown, and of course he would have liked to be sharing the midnight displays with them, but man, how good was this? This was being married to a beat-up Navy SEAL, this was them both naked and... ah, what the hell, the unconsciousness that trickled over him was just what he needed.

Danny forgot he was married to a beat-up Navy SEAL. For a whole hour and a half he forgot it because he was fast asleep.

And then, right on cue, the first of the local fireworks exploded from next door’s lanai at the exact moment the new year rolled around.

Danny felt the reverb in his chest. The detonations had Steve sitting bolt upright faster than whiplash. There was a loud slap at the same time, his hand coming down on the nightstand looking for his weapon. Damn it, the bad arm.

“No,” Danny said at once, reaching for him quick despite his sleep-state. “Hey, it’s not, it’s OK.” He made contact, gripped Steve’s forearm. It wasn’t exactly the first time this had happened.

Steve was on full alert. As the next explosions lit the room, he jerked his arm away, feet finding the floor. Danny scrambled after him across the bed. No way to dodge this crossfire between instinct, memory and reality – not right away, anyhow – but at least they could sit it out.

“Fireworks,” he said, firm. “You’re at home, Steve. You’re OK. New Year’s, tell me you know.”

“Jesus,” Steve said, breath coming in swoops as the next round fired. “Jesus, Danny.”

“Fireworks,” Danny repeated, voice low, stress level rising. He was so close now he could feel the rate Steve’s heart was hammering in his chest. The zing of adrenaline through his system.

“I know,” Steve said, hardwired to reassure. “I know.” Even so, he flinched, hard, as light and noise burst either side of the house and the window behind the bed was lit up. Danny was pretty sure Steve didn’t know, not fully. Not enough to get control of his reactions yet.

“It’s going to go on for a while, so you need to try and dial it down here.”

“I know,” Steve repeated, tetchy. “It’s OK, you don’t have to... _fuck_.” His upper body curled over as the screaming ones began, a volley of other bangs in the background.

“Whoah,” Danny said, hating it on his behalf. 

“It’s OK,” Steve said yet again, against all the evidence. “I know what’s going on, I don’t... this is not... It’s just –”

Yeah. Too close. Just too fucking close.

Steve’s injured arm was hugged into his chest, the other elbow on his knee, head dropped and both shoulders tense. 

Danny hunkered in close but didn’t say anything else for a while. He was familiar with the sound of controlled breathing, but worried Steve wasn’t leaning in, that the tension wasn’t leaving him.

Fuck.

“You want to get up and pace around the room, go right ahead,” Danny said.

Steve lifted his head, made a sound that was all caught up in his throat. “What I actually want is to get under the fucking bed.”

That from a man who rarely admitted how he was really feeling made Danny’s gut clench a little. 

“Fine,” he said, rattled by it, “You do that, you’re on your own.”

Now a surge of irrational rage prickled his hairline, against the people letting off fireworks on New Year’s Eve outside their house. Creating a firestorm, waking sensible people, terrifying the native wildlife. 

I mean, who would do that?

They sat on their bed side by side, Steve tense and Danny silently raging. 

And then, eventually, the worst of it began to taper off. There were longer periods of quiet and Danny felt his rage slipping away, the tension sliding from Steve’s body. The sound of the waves came back online. Relentless. Slowly Steve scrubbed the back of one hand over his forehead. It was a slow, considered gesture. He let the hand drop, squeezed Danny’s knee, then patted it.

“Done,” he said. “Over.”

“Huh.” 

Steve really was terrifyingly awesome at the mind over matter stuff. Enough to make Danny wonder what the long-term cost of such self-control might be. 

Right now a yawn burned down his jaw. Danny scratched the underside with his knuckles. It was ridiculously late. There was still an occasional burst of noise, although coming from further away now. He was still really, really tired. The room had returned to darkness. Slowly he hauled himself back across the bed. He wanted to sleep, but he didn’t get under the covers. 

“So you’re good now?” he ventured, resting on one elbow to observe.

“I’m good,” Steve replied, as if giving himself an order. He turned his head although Danny could tell he wasn’t looking directly at him. “Thanks.” Then he shifted to the head of the bed, plumped his pillows with one hand and lay back, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t get under the covers either. 

Danny cleared his throat. He let a few beats pass and then, “How’s the arm?” he asked.

Steve looked sideways at him through the shadows. “You know, it’s, I’m...”

“You’re fine?” Danny supplied for him with a sarcastic flourish of his free hand. He shifted closer, let the hand stroke down some ribs. “Well I don’t believe it but you know what?”

“What?” Steve said, arching under the touch in an encouragingly interesting way.

“I’m a husband. And you’re a husband.”

“Good work.”

“And husbands have needs.”

Steve huffed a croaky laugh. “What do you need, D?” 

“Suppose you stop asking stupid questions, and let me... listen, McGarrett, you have to let me... we need to make a fucking mess of this bed. Seriously. Right now. I need to hear you, babe, need to know you’re alive. And oh fuck, yes, here you are.”

Skin and bone and muscle and heart. All his. 

Steve groaned. His hand settled on the back of Danny’s head, and wonder of wonders, he did let him. 

Danny was way too tired to perform anything like his normal top-quality blow-job. And Steve was way too beat-up to show any of his usual top-quality stamina. They came all over themselves and each other anyhow.

It was ridiculously hot. And there was mess. Mess up the wazoo.

God, so good.

They kicked the sheet off the mattress and turned the quilt.

Danny flopped on his back, buzzed with sex and fatigue. A little spaced. For a while he figured maybe his blow-job had actually been better than he thought and his husband had passed out. And then he became aware of Steve reaching for the night-stand. Grappling clumsily for his phone. Danny rolled his head to see him staring at it.

“What?” he demanded, orgasm-stupid but not enough to keep him quiet. “I’m sorry, Commander, is there somewhere else you need to be?”

Steve dropped the phone down with a clatter, guilty. Then he lifted his good arm, instinctive, let Danny burrow in and face plant against his chest. “No,” he said into his hair. “Just working out what time it is over there.”

“I can do that for you,” Danny murmured. “About three thirty in the afternoon, you’re welcome. You’re wondering what your team of whacked-out crazies are doing now, aren’t you, huh? You’re wondering how any of them could possibly be managing without you.”

“Larabee actually. His guy’s back in the US without him… so I can guess how he’s feeling.”

“How they’re both feeling,” Danny said, lifting his head. He’d already identified with ‘Larabee’s guy’, even though he knew precisely nothing about him and had actually never met a journalist he didn’t want to punch.

Steve didn’t answer directly, just went for a series of short, hard kisses, the type where the last one was never enough.

“Breathing,” Danny said eventually holding him off without much determination. “Possessive fucker.”

“Main thing is, I have my guy, right?” Steve said, smug, arm tightening.

Danny snorted. “Jeez, McGarrett, you are such a teenage girl.”

“That’s not what you were saying a moment ago.”

Danny’s snort turned to a low laugh. And then, after a moment more of peace, Steve tensed again. He unwound his arm, got his feet back on the floor.

“What?” Danny said, head lifting again in exasperation. “What is the matter with you? Now where are you going?”

Steve slapped his non-existent belly. “Soup,” he said, feeling about on the floor for his sweatpants. He sat down to pull them on, then leaned over to cup Danny’s jaw for a second. “Can of minestrone?”

Finally, at stupid o’clock, the big putz was hungry.

Danny should have been irritated, but instead he felt a rush of euphoria. 

Insane as it was, as crazy and wretched and strung out as it sometimes made him, this second marriage thing was good. It really was. Solid, strong, deep as the damn ocean sloshing endlessly about on the shore out there – that damn ocean which would never, never go away. 

Danny rolled on to his back, put his arms behind his head. 

He yawned wide into the darkness, reckoned he was going to fall asleep any second. 

“Bring it, babe,” he said.

 

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> with thanks to farad for her help and for being better at this whole thing than I am.
> 
>  _Life is a minestrone, served up with parmesan cheese, death is a cold lasagne, suspended in deep freeze._ \- 'Life is a Minestrone', 10cc, 1975


End file.
